CD with medical data of 75,000 is found

I think the problem in this story is not that there was a CD found with medical data but rather that it was not encrypted. As it mentioned in the end of the article this is violating many medical record privacy laws. Now the company has assured the public as well as their policy holders that no information was retrieved and misused after interviews that THEY conducted. How is that suppose to make them feel much better? How does anyone know that for sure? The answer is you can not. Not only can you not be positive your personal information was not leaked but your information was not even protected. It was sent on a CD which anyone with a computer could read. Which is a violation in itself. I feel they must be prosecuted because these laws were put in place to protect people and if we can make an example of this company and set a precedent for future cases hopefully this will not happen again.


Source:
http://news.com.com/2100-1029_3-6167435.html

Murder, They Blogged

This story is about a 17 year old boy who killed his 15 year old girlfriend's mother. They were not arrested till 3 weeks after the murder. Police have looked at both children's myspace blogs and messages and concluded that the murder was planned. I think the blog is going to help investigators because the children had conflicting stories. It may be just the evidence they need to link the girl to the crime. Especially when one of her comments to her boyfriend was "Your gonna be really happy when you come home! Your wifey cleaned up the house and did ALL the laundry for you. [emotion for a grin]" The girl was clearly settling in to her new lifestyle which didn't include her previously deceased mother. However, I think that there might be some issues regarding whether or not the blog will be admissible in court proceedings. Perhaps its not whether the blog is admissible but rather if it is enough to tie the boy and girl to the crime. The boy and girl did not come out and say what happened but there were references and music lyrics that could be link to the crime.


Source: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1597801,00.html?cnn=yes

Woman accuses Yahoo of stealing her image

In this article, a woman who is a current yahoo user claims that her photograph was used in a welcome email for new users to yahoo. She claims that this picture was used with out her permission and is a violation of her rights.
After reading this article I have many questions. How did Yahoo obtain the photograph? Being a Yahoo account holder myself, I know that Yahoo is more than just a site used for email. There is also a Yahoo photos section which this woman could have loaded her picture to. What is in the user agreement when she signed up for her account with Yahoo? Does it give Yahoo explicit rights to photographs uploaded onto their website? Did she sign up for her Yahoo account before or after picture uploading was added to the service? If so her user agreement didn't include the rights to her photos. It will be interesting to see where this case goes.



Source:
http://news.com.com/2100-1030_3-6163987.html